Obama Seizes on Romney Comments, Suggesting He Is Out of Touch

President Obama was seen Thursday on a screen set up for reporters backstage at an event sponsored by Univision at the University of Miami.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — President Obama took aim on Thursday at Mitt Romney’s closed-door observation that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government handouts, do not pay income taxes and will inevitably vote for Mr. Obama, suggesting it showed how Mr. Romney is out of touch with most Americans.

“When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government,” Mr. Obama said, “my thinking is maybe you haven’t gotten around a lot.”

The president’s remarks came as Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney both campaigned in Florida, a swing state with 29 electoral votes. While Mr. Obama concentrated on the southern part of the state, Mr. Romney campaigned in Sarasota, a Republican bastion.

Speaking at a town hall-style interview sponsored by Univision, where Mr. Romney appeared Wednesday, Mr. Obama said that in his travels around the country he was convinced that “the American people are the hardest-working people there are. And their problem is not that they’re not working hard enough, or that they don’t want to work, or they’re being taxed too little, or they just want to loaf around and gather government checks.”

“People want a hand up,” Mr. Obama said, “not a handout.”

Mr. Obama gave his most extensive and barbed response to Mr. Romney’s comments, which were videotaped in May at a Republican fund-raiser in Florida. The president acknowledged that some people abused government largess, but he noted that “there are a whole bunch of millionaires who aren’t paying taxes.”

His remarks came during a lively, occasionally combative interview, in which the Univision anchors, Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, pressed the president on his failure to enact immigration reform, reports of abuses in the Operation Fast and Furious program and security at American embassies in the Middle East, in light of the recent attacks.

Mr. Ramos reminded Mr. Obama that during the 2008 campaign he promised that if elected, he would push for comprehensive immigration reform, a central issue for Hispanic voters. “You promised that,” he said. “With all due respect, you didn’t keep that promise.”

Mr. Obama replied that he accepted responsibility for falling short of this goal. But he put much of the blame on partisan gridlock, saying the Republican-controlled Congress had blocked his initiatives, including the Dream Act.

“There’s the thinking that the president is somebody who is all-powerful and can get everything done,” he said, noting that the White House must still deal with Congress and the courts. “We have to have cooperation from all these sources in order to get something done,” he said.

At one point Mr. Obama said: “The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.”

In Sarasota, Mr. Romney described the president’s remark as a stark admission of political failure and futility. “The president today threw in the white flag of surrender,” Mr. Romney said at a large outdoor rally. “He went from the president of change to the president who can’t get change.”

Mr. Romney, who has promoted himself as a business-minded outsider, told the 4,600 people gathered in a museum garden that “I can change Washington; I will change Washington. We’ll get the job done from the inside. Republicans and Democrats will come together.”

Mr. Obama’s campaign did not let the remarks go unchallenged, accusing Mr. Romney of “desperation.” Advisers to Mr. Obama said he was emphasizing the need to mobilize outside voices to push for change in Washington — a message they said he struck in campaign speeches four years ago.

Later at an Obama fund-raiser in Tampa, Eddie Vedder, the frontman for the band Pearl Jam, told a story after performing about how he got his start in a government training program for security guards. “It was that job which allowed me to keep affording guitars and microphones,” Mr. Vedder said, adding that he found Mr. Romney’s remarks “very upsetting.”